So I’m really pleased to be back in the Information Centre here at Judge Business School, and one of my first tasks was to attend a PhD research lunch: sandwiches on my first day? I think I can handle that!
The session was hosted by two former colleagues of mine at the University Library, and was centred around data management. Now librarians love the idea of data management, but we do understand that not everyone shares our passion.To counter this we have been known to resort to uber-professional dryness, or verge on the melodramatic: “when information goes wild- take cover or take control!” Thankfully the UL team did no such thing, they were professional, informative and, most of all, practical. Here’s a little of what I learnt.
1. Anyone can lose data. Even you. Even Pixar, who almost lost Woody and Buzz…
If there’s 50 ways to leave your lover, then there’s at least 50 ways to lose your data. Most of them are avoidable. Save regularly, especially if you’ve just finished something particularly tricky or time consuming. Make multiple copies: USB sticks are known to stray, CDs accidentally become coasters and external hard-drives, well, knowing your luck it’ll spontaneously combust. Consider a cloud storage solution, if the terms of your grant allow it and the data isn’t sensitive, then Dropbox is your friend.
2. We all ‘do’ data
Data conjures up images of code, figures and spreadsheets, but that’s not the whole story. Your PhD is data, so is your address-book or even your to-do list. It’s information that you need to perform a task, information that you rely upon, and in this context, information it would be impossible or tedious to recreate.
We all ‘do’ data, but we don’t all do it well. Consider your your computer filing system- would it make sense to someone else using it? does it even make sense to you? How do you name your files? Angefilev1.1, Angefilev1.2 is on the boring side, but far easier to understand than finaldraft, finaldraftaddtions, actualfinaldraft…
If you are sharing your data consider what software or operating systems you are all using, make sure they are compatible. Define your data from the outset, deciding what format, standards and capture methods you will use. Contextualizing information with the appropriate metadata will make it easier to find, cite and reuse.
Oh, and purge your data often, or expunge if that’s more your style.
3. Intellectual Property and Copyright aren’t as scary as they sound
The UL team went into the complexities of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and Copyright in a way that really took the sting out of them; IPR can be scary, but keeping your head in the sand is not an option. Much of this was new to me, but here’s food for thought:
4. “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow” Patton
Whether you’re in the midst of research or just setting out, organising your data can be daunting. The key thing is to plan well, but to have realistic expectations of your plan. Your research will change as you evaluate sources, discuss queries with your supervisor, or just find that the first approach didn’t work out.
You’ll never develop a perfect strategy for data management, so don’t hold out for one- pick something workable, and remember that everything changes.
Data Management Plans, an outline of how you will create, manage, share and preserve your data throughout your research. Good data management will make your research more credible and discoverable; it will enhance your academic reputation and increase your citation rate. Most UK and European funding bodies will require a Data Management Plan.
5. There’s help at hand
The team from DSpace have amazing expertise in this area- ask them for help if you need it! Other useful places to check out are JISCLegal for IPR advice and DMPonline to create your Data Management Plan.
6. Remember that your data could have a life beyond you
You might think that that the audience for your data is very, well, niche, but you would be amazed what others can do with your data! There are some really interesting projects out there using second hand data, like Where Does my Money Go?
Research funded by public money may have to be made publicly available, so check the small print on your contract.
(Source: tsalmaveth, via teachingliteracy)
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Nyan Library Card Cat [animation]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls0azxoL9L1qe294uo1_400.gif)
Nyan Library Card Cat [animation]
[video]
My sumbission for lookslikelibraryscience Check it out for more cool librarians who smash the cardigan stereotype!
Ange Fitzpatrick Authority and cataloguing specialist from Cambridge University Library.
A shambrarian, a village Scout leader, and always prepared!
Things to cut before closing libraries: Why not make the Queen's Diamond Jubilee really special? -
I love the Queen. She’s great isn’t she? She’s like your gran. Like your incredibly rich gran who has a lovely range of brooches and hats. And this year is her Diamond Jubilee. Woohoo! Get that bunting out and have a street party. Or, as the government would have it, “get that lady a new bloody great boat”.
Now, much as I love a good boat (who wouldn’t love that as a present), it strikes me as a little, er, over-the-top. I mean, boats are lovely presents but is it really necessary in a time of austerity. So here’s a suggestion. Instead of a spanking new boat, why not buy one of these lovely Diamond Anniversary Gift Boxes. Not only will the Queen be able to read the newspaper of her choice published on the day of her coronation (a great thing in itself as surely she wouldn’t have had time to do so on the day) but it’ll save £59,999,960. Bonus. And as an extra bonus, why not invest some of that money in our public libraries? Now that would be a legacy we can all appreciate. God Save The Queen, The Queen Saves The Libraries. Nice.
Library saving rating: 5/5
(Source: Flickr / mbiskoping)
I’ll take that as my resolution.
(Source: this--too--shall--pass, via thatallygirl)
I’m responding to my recent Cam23 2.0 post on using ImageCodr to smarten up your CC attributions for flickr images. It’s a neat tool, but not neat enough it seems. Some of you folk want to move things around and fiddle with the settings- more power to you!
We use ImageCodr to attribute our images on the Judge Business School Information Services website, but sometimes having the CC license and the flickr link right below the picture gets in the way of bullet points, or forces a big gap between image and content- not a great look, and a real problem when you use thumbnails.
To get round this at Judge we split the HTML that ImageCodr produces, and we do it like this.
Ok, so we’ve got our image and ImageCodr has generated the code:
If you don’t want the attribution to appear directly under the picture you can split the code into image and attribution. In the example above the image section is between the first two <a> </a> tags:
<a href=’http://www.flickr.com/photos/topatoco/3350262608/’ target=’_blank’><img src=’http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3552/3350262608_2cb64f6a63_m.jpg’ alt=’Librarian Love! by TopatoCo, on Flickr’ title=’Librarian Love! by TopatoCo, on Flickr’ border=’0’/></a>
Paste this in at the top of your post (in the HTML tab), you then get just the image. Notice how it still links back to the original source.
The accreditation is the rest of the code- one set of <a> </a> tags for the license image, and one for the flickr link:
<a href=’http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/’ target=’_blank’><img src=’http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.0/80x15.png’ alt=’Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License’ title=’Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License’ border=’0’ align=’left’></a> by <a href=’http://www.flickr.com/people/topatoco/’ target=’_blank’> TopatoCo</a><a href=’http://www.imagecodr.org/’ target=’_blank’> </a>
You can paste this at the end of your text (see the very bottom of the post). I like to add ‘Image credit’ to make it clear what’s going on.
This is also an opportunity to change the title and mouseover text associated with the image, simply alter the content within the quotation marks in the alt= and title= tags. Voila:
Image credit 
by TopatoCo
P.S. That’s a Tim Horton’s chocolate dip donut in the top picture. This is one of the very many things that makes Canada great.
via walkyouhome and kingstrato
thewikiman strikes again! Extensive research that includes gin, cardigans and LOLcats, but wisely avoids sexual deviance and beards. Candidates I’d offer for ‘The Great Library Stereotypometer- The Revenge’ include folk dancing and real ale.
For tumblr-folk outside the UK, this might be the first time you’ve looked at Ned’s blog, if so it’s well worth delving deeper. His posts on getting prezi right and presenting skills are must-reads in my book.
